


In Worship

by CalamityCain



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships, Mind Control, Possible Frosthawk (if you look closely)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 19:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalamityCain/pseuds/CalamityCain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton recalls his time spent as a servant to the God of Chaos, of days without light and dreams bathed in hypnotic blue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Worship

In the final moments before I let loose my arrow, I look into the sunlit sky and see a would-be king.

Not ten seconds ago he swooped into my sight. A great falcon of gold and green, with a monstrous yet graceful alien contraption in place of wings, cutting through the air in a flawless arc.

I have always had a thing for birds of prey. Fierce, unrelentingly proud, untamable by man. You can cage them, but you can never change them.

My target is clear. The uncaged creature is in sight. And, as someone in an old movie said, I’m not here to dance.

I release the bowstring…

 

. . . . . .

 

_Underground. Light does not touch such corners of the earth as this. My days are fading into a series of tunnels, each greyer and hazier than the next. Others move around me like so many shadows; I cannot bring myself to notice them._

_He alone becomes my beacon._

_It seems like he and the Tesseract are one. A blazing, seemingly infinite source of energy that animates our bones. With his very breath he electrifies the air. And being our source of power, he becomes our king._

_A rustle of leather. In a blink he is behind me._

“Barton,” _he whispers._ “What do you see?”

_He asks this of me often. I suppose I, along with Erik Selvig, are his eyes in the mortal world above. The rest are mere drones – we have been chosen for our intellect and our abilities. But Selvig is like a madman when gripped by his science and his passionate tinkerings; so I become the one he turns to. The archangel to my god._

_What he did to me has imbued me, temporarily or otherwise, with the gift of gazing beyond surfaces. I look up to the silent ceiling and see past it. I see what will come to be._

“They are assembling,” _I reply._ “Fury calls, and they answer.”

_For some reason this pleases him. I watch the pale, mercurial lips curve upward. I will remember that smile for a long time._

_. . . . . ._

_Mayhem is in the air. I can feel it._

_He does not need words to summon us. Sometimes, I think all he does is twitch his fingers. And before I know it, I am there by his side. His aura is like a stimulant. If my senses were keen before, they positively crackle when I am near him._

_He has a distinct scent about him. When he first came through the tear in the time-fabric caused by the Tesseract, he smelt like a snarling, wounded predator: all sweat and musk and fear – yes, fear. The kind that makes a beast defend itself with its dying breath and drag you down with it into its many-fanged hell._

_But as the sun rose on the wreckage we left behind and the madness in his eyes waned, it calmed into a humming, electric tang. The smell of the air before a storm mingled with the leather of his garb. And something else. Something…otherworldly._

_He stands before me now. My hairs tingle. I feel like I could see into eternity if I stared hard enough. But his eyes arrest me first, as always._

“I want you to tell me everything,” _he says._ “Everything you know about them.”

_I do not need to ask who ‘them’ is. He wishes to spill from me my most intimate knowledge of each one – their strengths, their fears, the parts of themselves they shield the most. To know one’s enemy is power. And he has ever so many enemies. Ones he has amassed across the universe, and now here on earth. We wishes to know the secrets of the people Fury would send to annihilate him._

_What would it take, to annihilate a god?_

_I do not know this. But what I do know, I pour into his ready, patient ears and those electric green eyes that go on forever._

_One could drown in those keen hypnotic eyes. One could run out of breath, cease to breathe, and never even know it._

_. . . . . ._

_Like lovers, we begin to anticipate each other’s thoughts. He needs to speak but a few words for me to grasp precisely what needs doing. And I need speak even fewer. He is not of this world; this preternatural being of dimensions we cannot begin to fathom. His every gesture speaks volumes. The merest twitch of his lips, his eyebrow, his perfectly formed fingers, say_ “I know. I understand.” 

_One should never mistake this understanding for kindness, though. I have seen him at his most ruthless. I learn to anticipate the moment that precedes it. When he falls perfectly still, when a silence cloaks the air so much that you feel like your every breath is a loud intrusion, when all the light in your world is pulled and concentrated into those two piercing irises. That is when he is ready to kill._

_It could be the strike of a hand. The flash of a knife – he is very good with knives. A twisting motion wringing out a ragged, painful shriek from lips that freeze in death before you hit the ground. Or, if he has time, he might toy with you. Let his fingers cradle your chin like a loved one would, then slowly crush the bones of your jaw and the air from your throat._

_I watch all these with an unchanging face. Deep inside me, perhaps, something recoils in secondhand agony and the horror of it all. But it is a part that the rest of me is unable to acknowledge._

_Besides, it is soon drowned out by his never-ending whispers. The spell he has woven is ever-present; a susurrus that never really leaves you, even in your dreams. And I do dream, even under his thrall. My dreams are bathed in soft blue light – the same light that crept through my heart, up my valves and into my brain on the night I became his._

_. . . . . ._

_I sleep in darkness. I wake to the same. Day and night mean nothing to us moles who burrow underground at clockwork will. Time is what we make of it. And make efficient use of it we do. I pass by Selvig, whose head is – for once – not bowed in crazed industriousness. He actually smiles in greeting._

_I sense a difference in the air. It seems like our work on the Tesseract – on our ruler’s grand plan – is reaching a sort of culmination. There is a palpable sense of purpose._

_Mad, glorious purpose._

_Then I smell it. The scent of electric musk._

_He bends over Selvig’s work station and says something to the scientist, who lights up like a Christmas tree and nods fervently, spouting earnest ravings about_ “knowledge” _and_ “truth”. 

_Then he turns to me. It seems he has taken no more than three steps; but before I know it we are alone. Surrounded only by shadow and impenetrable walls._

_I stand to attention like a hound, in worship of a god – a king among men._

“What did it show you, Agent Barton?” _he asks me._

_I close my eyes. Lucid visions bathed in blue spring forth, near indistinguishable from my dreams. Where does the dream end and the truth begin? Maybe it doesn’t matter._

_The one constant vision is clear. I open my eyes and gaze into the pale visage of my king._

_His lips part to that ever-familiar question:_ “What do you see?”

_I answer._ “My target.”

_My voice sounds so detached to my own ears. Inhuman; focused; mechanical._

_Before I know it, I’m divulging more details: about Nick Fury’s helicarrier and its inner workings, about the best way to attack, the best time to attack, and how to get past the vigilant Cyclops . He drinks this all in hungrily; there is a hint of his former madness in those piercing eyes. I can feel his restlessness. He lusts for the world aboveground as much as I do._

“I weary of scuttling in shadow.” _The weight in his voice rings true. But in the next minute, the weariness is replaced by ambition that lights his brow like a crown._

“I mean to rule this world. Not burrow in it.”

 

. . . . . .

 

I remember surfacing – breaking free of his magic.

I remember daylight filling my lungs. Daylight, and sharp air unhampered by layers of unending grey.

It is midday now, and I am reminded of how New York is never really warm. Warmth here is only borrowed, never owned: in the folds of a jacket, in the heat of freshly-brewed coffee.

A stiff breeze ruffles the air. My body is on full alert, taking in the view the sun gives me. With a single gaze I catch his gleam and his airborne steed.

But even before that, I smell him. Electric and leather and musk.

_You could have been a king,_ I think. Not ruler of this planet, perhaps; but a ruler nonetheless. Proud, tall, viciously intelligent. Worthy of a crowd that would willingly stand, and bow, in worship. It’s too bad you chased that dream down the wrong path. And I was your blind servant, as blind as you were.

Bird of prey. Gold and green. A worthy adversary. A god who would be king of the world, when he is already a king among men.

“Too bad,” I murmur and take aim.

The loaded arrow meets its mark as I knew it would. It explodes, as I knew it would.

I stand and watch as a king is toppled from his throne.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first (and probably only) time writing Clint as a major character. I have no idea if I'm doing it right; but it felt right at the time. So. ;)
> 
> (I'm still beta-less, hence any failings and flaws in characterization are mine alone)


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